A generation of Democrats lost in the Obama era

posted at 3:31 pm on November 9, 2014 by Noah Rothman

The scale of the Democratic Party’s losses over the course of the Barack Obama era is becoming clear, and they are vast. On Saturday, Politico reported that Democrats are coming to the grim realization that much of the party’s talent pool was crushed on Tuesday.

In Maryland, the state’s lieutenant governor, an Iraq War veteran and Harvard alumnus, failed to win the state’s governor’s mansion despite Barack Obama personally campaigning for him. In Georgia and Kentucky, New Southern Democrats Michelle Nunn and Alison Lundergan Grimes were defeated by a political newcomer and Republican incumbent respectively. In Texas, Wendy Davis, hailed in the press as the women who might finally turn Texas blue, had precisely the opposite effect on her state. The state Senate seat she once held will be occupied in January by a pro-life, tea party-friendly Republican woman.

“Any of them could have landed on a vice presidential short list in 2016,” Politico lamented. “Instead, all of them lost.”

Joining them were numerous down-ballot Democrats widely viewed as future contenders for high office: attorney general candidates in Nevada and Arizona who looked like future governors; aspiring state treasurers in Ohio and Colorado who could have gone on to bigger things; prized secretary of state candidates in Iowa and Kansas as well as countless congressional hopefuls around the country.

In two consecutive midterms, Republicans have decimated the Democratic Party’s bench of talent, not just on the federal or statewide level but farther down the ballot as well. The GOP now controls 69 of the nation’s 99 legislative chambers, a dramatic reversal, according to Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso, from 2008 when Barack Obama’s party controlled 62 legislative chambers. The GOP now has the total command of state government – both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansions – in 23 states, while Democrats command the levers of government in just seven states. In addition to the Republican Party’s 31 governorships, the GOP enjoys the allegiance of 32 lieutenant governors offices and 29 crucial secretaries of state.

“Think of it this way,” he wrote. “If Clinton were to win the presidency and serve two terms, the next opportunity for a new generation of Democrats to compete nationally would not come until 2024.”

“The Democrats could go 16 years between competitive presidential nomination contests, wiping out opportunities for today’s younger generation to define or redefine the party apart from either the Obama or Clinton eras,” Balz continued.

According to national exit polling, Republicans improved with the voters aged 18-29 who turned out by 2 points over the party’s 2010 standing. The GOP only lost young voters to Democrats by an atypically close single-digit margin. Moreover, the GOP continues to elevate a younger generation of leaders to high office, including the youngest woman to serve in the House in history, 30-year-old Representative-elect Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who had the added privilege of turning her Empire State district from blue to red. She will replace Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) who, at 33-years-old, will soon only be the second youngest House member.

The Democratic officeholders who survived the routings of 2010 and 2014 are primarily entrenched incumbents and are invariably of an older set. The Democratic Party is rapidly becoming a political organization that, as liberals once said of the GOP, does not look like the constituents it seeks to represent.

Balz further notes that the last competitive Democratic presidential primary, an energizing spectacle which Democrats are unlikely to have in 2016, featured a number of names that have long ago shuffled off the national stage.

The last competitive nomination campaign, in 2008, included — in addition to Obama and Clinton — an experienced field: then-senators Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd and John Edwards, and then-governor Bill Richardson. Clinton has been on the national stage for two decades. Biden, who might run if Clinton does not, was elected to the Senate four decades ago. Dodd and Richardson are out of office. Edwards is in disgrace. With the obvious exceptions, that field has disappeared.

And who might challenge Clinton in 2016? Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley has been repudiated by his deep blue state’s voters. California Gov. Jerry Brown, 76, won his first statewide office during the Nixon administration. Andrew Cuomo, who Balz dismisses as unable to remove himself from Clinton’s shadow, is despised by his party’s left-wing. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is a septuagenarian socialist.

By contrast, the GOP has a slate of young, energetic federal and statewide office holders and a number of two-term governors now who have consistently demonstrated their ability to withstand Democratic attacks. One which should send shivers down the left’s collective spines is Ohio’s John Kasich. The Buckeye State’s governor won his reelection by the second-largest margin in its history, but his state’s voters have also seen fit to give the GOP near total command of the state under Kasich’s watch.

Ohio is an interesting case study of the fortunes of the two parties. It has been ground zero in presidential campaigns for years. Obama won it twice — but at the state level, Republicans are firmly in control. GOP candidates have won all the statewide elected offices there in five of the past six elections.

The party maintains a strong bench of talent on the coasts and in America’s urban centers, but Democratic strategists are right to fret that those future recruits may not have the crossover appeal in purple states that center-left candidates otherwise would.

When Barack Obama took office, he was hailed as a liberal savior. His presidency, it was believed, would usher in a new era of progressive dominance not seen since Roosevelt. Instead, Republicans have been restored to a position of power across the country they had not known since Al Smith lost 40 states to Herbert Hoover. Far from revitalizing it, Obama has erased generations of the Democratic Party’s progress.

An earlier version of this article indicated Nunn lost to an incumbent. Senator-elect David Perdue ran for an open seat in Georgia. Stefanik was also identified in an earlier version of this article as the youngest person to be elected to the House.

When Barack Obama took office, he was hailed as a liberal savior. His presidency, it was believed, would usher in a new era of progressive dominance not seen since Roosevelt. Instead, Republicans have been restored to a position of power across the country they had not known since Al Smith lost 40 states to Herbert Hoover. Far from revitalizing it, Obama has erased generations of the Democratic Party’s progress.

As arrogant and contemptuous as Barack Obama is, he is not the sole reason for the challenges the Democrat Party.

Among the other reasons…

…the progressive-fascist agenda…
…the purging from the Democrat Party of all those who aren’t fully and loyally vested in that agenda…
…and the non-stop dependence on vile identity politics.

Their entire message has been based on driving and stoking false perceptions around ‘social justice’, ‘fairness’, and ‘equality’.
That message crashed head-on with reality.

Sorry, I just put this in a HL thread. Regarding Ohio, Kasich’s win is only part of the story. Here’s the rest of the story:

This isn’t even the significant thing in Ohio. Kasich’s opponent (Fitzgerald) has been a clusterphuck for a year. Fitzgerald thought he’d be cute and named as his running mate a black state senator from Cincinnati who is term limited. The guy and his wife claim to be tight with Obama and his wife. Turns out he and his wife have HUGE federal income tax problems. Liens in the high six figures. It took the media no time to discover this, and within about 10 days after naming him around Thanksgiving last year, Fitzgerald had to dump the guy. Fitzgerald then settled on some pro-abortion woman from the Dayton area with zero name recognition. Fitzgerald, we also learned this summer, hasn’t had a valid Ohio driver’s license for 10 or so years.

So, in a matter of a year, three somewhat “rising Dem stars” in Ohio either got torpedoed or got exposed as complete hacks.

What’s far more important, however, is that the rest of the Dem’s statewide ticket got completely crushed. The GOP’s AG, Mike DeWine (kind of a weenie, but willing to fight the feds), beat the son (David Pepper) of a former P&G CEO. Pepper was seen as a rising Dem star. The GOP’s Secretary of State trounced some black woman, so at least for 2016, we have fewer chances of the Dems playing with voter fraud. The GOP’s Auditor (yawn) won handily, which keeps a statewide race out of Dem hands, and eliminates the possibility of employing Dem hacks while they lick their wounds. Finally, and the best of all, the Dems ran a state rep named Connie Pillich for state treasurer. Former Dem governor Strickland appointed her to finish a GOP rep’s term. The GOP had little time to find a candidate, and she won in 2008 because a bunch of suburban beta males voted for her and Obama. She won in 2010 and 2012, when the GOP ran a lousy Tea Party candidate–I had to hold my nose to vote for this clown. Anyway, the Dems thought it was time to promote her, and they figured she could take out Josh Mandel. No chance: Mandel 57%, Pillich 43%.

The Ohio senate is GOP 23, Dems 10; the Ohio house is GOP 65, Dems 34 (GOP added five seats).

Oh, and two GOP judges were elected to fill spots on the GOP-dominated Ohio Supreme Court.

After a night of punishing losses, House Democrats are deeper in the minority than they’ve been in nearly 80 years — and party strategists say it could take years — possibly until after the next round of political map-drawing in the 2020s — to dig out of the hole.

That the Democrats had the hubris, the gall really, to ram that legislation through, after Scott Brown’s MA election showed that the country definitely did not want it. Major legislation, like Medicare and Social Security, to that point had always had at least some degree of bi-partisan support. But here, without a vote to spare, they enlisted the help of not a single Republican in forcing Obamacare on the people. The result, on this very personal and critically important issue for everybody, is that a contentious non-cooperative destructive environment surrounding the conception and delivery of healthcare services has been created.

Many pundits thought that Obamacare would have only a brief impact on the Dems, and then it would be back to normal. But in truth it is going to continue to insidiously eat away at the heart and soul of Democratic support for years to come. We haven’t seen nothing yet.

The democrats are a spent force in national politics for at least the next decade. They will never win in 2016 or 2020. Illegal Latinos may get amnesty, but they won’t get citizenship and the vote for a long time. Blacks won’t turn out in massive numbers or percentages after seeing the black unemployment rate under Obama, whom they still love, as the best possible outcome and get demoralized, millenials won’t turn out in any big way for the party the stuck them with the cost of Obamacare, the judge preventing the GOP from enforcing voter integrity laws will eventually die, and White women won’t have any reason to vote democrat as social issues are increasingly neutralized on the national stage due to the GOP’s gradual capitulation.

Apparently every generation has to learn that Marxism doesn’t work. In its more benign form millions of jobs are lost, wages stagnate, and the middle classes are destroyed. In its more malignant form untold millions are murdered.

That won’t be a problem after he grants amnesty to millions of illegal alien invaders — with millions more to come — and likely without any significant challenge by the GOPee …ShainS on November 9, 2014 at 3:36 PM

If Obama tries to do this with this with his so-called executive powers, I predict the Democrat Party will be shattered for decades to come.

The wild card here is still the ability of the Democrats — with massive help from their friends in the big media — to create a ‘superstar’ candidate out of whole cloth, in the same way they hyped Barack Obama up to demigod status in the 2004-09 period.

So it’s not really necessary for that person to have done anything meaningful either in terms of legislation or resume before being elected to lower office — just hold the right progressive views and the Dems and the media will turn anyone into the next Greatest Candidate/Human Being/Life Form to Ever Exist In the History of the Universe. You can see the left side of the party trying to do that now with Liz Warren, because they think Hillary’s too much of a right-wing fundie neocon. Same deal with Julian Castro and moving him to HUD from his San Antonio mayor’s position — better to build his faux resume without having to submit him to the voters of Texas.

Just because the Democrats have no bench doesn’t mean the media can’t propagandize a bench of 1-2 candidates out of thin air, just as they did with Obama starting a decade ago.

Democrats are found in the cities of the US. Without the cities Democrats would be hard to find. But many cities of the US are failing. Most US cities are on a continuum with Detroit. Once great engines of wealth creation (Detroit was the wealthiest city in the world per capita) cities are unable to support themselves because of red tape, zoning, environmental regulations, codes, unions, competition, disappearing work ethic, high costs, expensive energy, rotting infrastructure, drugs, and crime. Many businesses remain in cities because of long habit or government subsidies. Their workers have a greater and greater difficulty being able to support themselves in the costly city environment. Besides wanting to run the country when they can’t run their own cities, Democrats also are going to want the rest of the country to subsidize their urban failure.

The problem for the GOP is that while the voters are unhappy with Barack Obama they still want big government that gives away free stuff. They don’t want Obamacare, but they still want government-provided health care.

The GOP needs to not only discredit big government liberalism, they also need to offer a positive alternative. Otherwise the voters will flock to the next snake-oil salesman the Democrats come up with.

The wild card here is still the ability of the Democrats — with massive help from their friends in the big media — to create a ‘superstar’ candidate out of whole cloth, in the same way they hyped Barack Obama up to demigod status in the 2004-09 period.

jon1979 on November 9, 2014 at 3:55 PM

That’s a valid point. The Ministry of Truth can gin up another series of perceptions around a candidate like they did with Barack Obama.

But now there is a simple retort… Remember Barack Obama and what really happened? The fecklessness. The incompetence. Obamacare. The economy.

Reality is a welcome tonic to those who peddle in creating and driving perceptions.

The actual story about Ohio was how the Dems managed to mess it all up at the top. Kasich didn’t even have an opponent – Ed Fitzgerald lost in catastrophic fashion, and that cascaded down all the way to the state Dem party leader (who lost his own reelection campaign, then resigned in total disgrace).

Fitzgerald was the Dem equivalent to Todd Achin’, if Achin’ didn’t have a driver’s license for a decade and got caught in the dead of night in a car with an Irish lass that wasn’t his wife.

Kasich probably would have won without that much of a problem. Instead, Fitzgerald’s failures resulted in him unintentionally emerging as a political dynamo. He even WON CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

Lots of huge Dem cities are at or near bankruptcy right now. The only thing propping up them and (basically) the entire US economy is Quantitative Easing and 0% interest rates by the Fed. Municipal bankruptcies are already starting. These are generational, unionized, democrat voters that will demand what they have been promised and the government will not be able to give it to them.

Politicians will always service the debt first, otherwise they won’t be able to borrow any more money.

By 2016 we will probably be close to 20 Trillion in debt. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

If the interest rate on our debt went up to 1%, it would blow a hole in the Federal budget large enough for Obama’s entourage to drive through….side by side.

What would happen if the GOP did pass comprehensive immigration reform but made it effective only when black unemployment rate is equal to the general rate and both are under 5%. I would dare 0Bama to veto that.

While I’m glad that the Dems got wiped out, I now despise Kasich (for his Medicaid expansion sellout and lies about it not being tied to ObamaCare) and decided he could win this time without my vote. I protest-voted the Green Party candidate (who, of course, had no shot). I also voted Libertarian in the SOS race because Husted is nothing but a phony careerist who has his eyes on the governor’s seat. DeWine has been a good AG and is fine in that slot and now won’t ever try going back to the Senate ever again. The rest are decent folks. I hope that Jim Jordan runs against Sherrod Brown in 2018 and Mary Taylor runs/wins the governor’s mansion that same year.

I also felt Obama would be the zenith of the Democratic Party. The Party trotted him out as a gimmick, the first black president and now they are trying for another gimmick in Hillary in 2016. The two trick pony will work as well as the war on women meme worked in this year’s election. The Democratic Party continues to think demographics are destiny, but in reality the next generation is not only less homophobic, they are another generation removed from the old stale politics of race, sexism, and classism that continue to define the Democratic agenda. This generation is only interested in what really works for them and not on empty political rhetoric.

The problem the Dems are facing is that Obama brought so many people into the political process who were not previously vested in politics. They really believed his rhetoric and actually looked to see if things would change. Instead, they have seen the past 6 years and noticed that the Dems don’t deliver and often times run things incompetenty.

Not only that, all the talk of how evil Bush was and how the Iraq War was all wrong, has turned out to be false. There were weapons of mass destruction. U.S. troops are a force for stability in the Middle East and not instability belying the whole notion of “blowback” because of our troop presence.

Lastly, the GOP seems to be the party of increasing diversity, with stand out Senators such as Rubio, Cruz, and Scott. Newly elected and young reps like Mia Love and dynamic and effective governors like Scott Walker, Kasich and Perry. I have no doubt the people of Illinois witness what transpired in Wisconsin and determine that they need an R (for Reform) in the governor’s mansion.

With Obama looking to double down on his failed leadership style by pretending he is all the matters in D.C., the democrats better not be comforted by the thought that the 2016 election automatically means a return to power. If Obama continues his obstinance, they could be looking at another wave election that sweeps the GOP into the White House. 2010 the GOP won back the House. 2014, the GOP won back the Senate. 2016 wth the right nominee backed by the entire party (Scott Walker?), the GOP will take back the White House, while retaining it’s power in Congress and in the States.

Holy moly is Noah becoming monotonous. Yes the Republicans won an election they were overwhelmingly favored to win. Good job all around!

Now get to work on trying to win a NATIONAL election once more. Because only 1 popular vote win in the past 6 elections a national party does not make. So let’s not start going down on each other just yet.

While I’m glad that the Dems got wiped out, I now despise Kasich (for his Medicaid expansion sellout and lies about it not being tied to ObamaCare)

Bitter Clinger on November 9, 2014 at 4:29 PM

Look at Kasich’s leftist views on “climate change” as well. That issue is important, because now according to polls more than 75% of the GOP voters don’t buy accept the fear mongering theory, and for Republicans that buck this (despite ample evidence to the contrary), they are saying they are smarter than the rest of the “GOP rubes,” aligning themselves with the elite cocktail party set.

Further, now the leftists are specifically making a big deal about Kasich’s views. Kasich has become a poster boy for the left, literally:

Barack Obama may be more like Ronald Reagan than we thought. No one has done more to wake up and motivate conservatives since Ronald Reagan than Obama.

Buckshots on November 9, 2014 at 4:35 PM

Actually, the only silver lining I could find in Obola’s 2008 election was the knowledge he would be at least as bad as Jimmah Carter, with the possibility of a parallel that could lead to the emergence of a Reagan-like candidate.

[It’s also one of the reasons why I thought 2012 was the right person in the right place at the right time — for Sarah Palin. Having skipped that opportunity, I thing she’s done now …]

The Democrats have been practicing Chicago Thug Politics since Obama made it to the Senate so why is this surprising. I don’t believe the country is ready for Chicago Thug Politics. The Democrats played it so much that, even in Chicago, black folk want a tea party.

It’s about time the Republicans learned to talk to people, about policy. Why tax cuts are good, why the Keystone Pipeline is good, why trade agreements are good, why blanket amnesty is bad. Get the facts out. If the press learned something from this election, maybe that will be possible. It would be nice to have a chance to get your message out without the media playing the role of referee and joining the Democrats in lying about what you’re saying.

2010 the GOP won back the House. 2014, the GOP won back the Senate. 2016 wth the right nominee backed by the entire party (Scott Walker?), the GOP will take back the White House, while retaining it’s power in Congress and in the States.

milemarker2020 on November 9, 2014 at 4:39 PM

While we can always hope that happens, the problem is that 2008 and 2012 both proved that the GOP will never be able to find any candidate that the whole party will back; enough of those selfish GOP people stayed home in those 2 years to ensure that the Democrat won each time. The reason the Democrats win elections is that their voters will hold their collective noses and turn out to vote for their party’s candidate; the Republicans selfishly stay home.

And some of those people who stay home post here. They know who they are!

Look at Kasich’s leftist views on “climate change” as well. That issue is important, because now according to polls more than 75% of the GOP voters don’t buy accept the fear mongering theory, and for Republicans that buck this (despite ample evidence to the contrary), they are saying they are smarter than the rest of the “GOP rubes,” aligning themselves with the elite cocktail party set.

Further, now the leftists are specifically making a big deal about Kasich’s views. Kasich has become a poster boy for the left, literally:

Who knows how much more of the Nation he can flip to red in his remaining two years? I mean look at what he has done already.

Would it be wrong to suggest we give Democrats what they seem to want, and let Dear Leader serve a third term? He’s become a juggernaut of Republican progress.
Obama’s digging a hole for Democrats deeper than we’ve seen in 8 decades. Let the man keep his shovel awhile longer, I say!

Would it be wrong to suggest we give Democrats what they seem to want, and let Dear Leader serve a third term? He’s become a juggernaut of Republican progress.
Obama’s digging a hole for Democrats deeper than we’ve seen in 8 decades. Let the man keep his shovel awhile longer, I say!

orangemtl on November 9, 2014 at 5:11 PM

Maybe, maybe not. Look at the record: Obama runs, Dems win. Obama doesn’t run, Dems lose. Do you really want to take that chance? Sure, the way President Doofus is acting now proports that maybe he would be a drag on the ticket, but that’s what we thought two years ago. As for me. good riddance to the lying sack of shiite.

I look upon the election as more of a reprieve than a victory. We’ve been here before and fumbled the ball (just like Auburn) before we could cross over the goal line. The country has definitely shifted leftward since I was a young man. Even in areas without large minorities (northern New England, upper Middle West and Oregon and Washington state) there is a definite liberal swing–a gift of our university system. And now even elections in Alaska have become nail biters.

We’re currently stuck with an ideologue who would rather lose a country than lose ideologically on the Amnesty issue and it remains to be seen whether there a way (or even a will) for the new political victors to stop him.

Now, for all the states that control all three levers, start enacting proof of US citizenship when registering to vote. Only three or four states require it. It’s absurd not to have it.

Dems are going to whine that it’s silly? Nice argument.

Enact it.

BuckeyeSam on November 9, 2014 at 5:25 PM

Not to mention it’s also time to not only clean up the voter registration lists (about 1.8 million dead on the lists across the country), but also adopt a zero tolerance policy on all voter fraud and voter registration fraud.

If Obama and the Dems keep up the pace of importing 3rd world foreigners to replace us at the current and planned level… Close to 50 million in 10 Yeats it won’t matter who they run…. They will just win and each working American will be so busy supporting 2 immigrant families in addition to our own with the leftover crumbs we won’t have time to do anything about it

I think the explanation is simply that for the Democrats, their kingdom is come. They have everything they’ve been fighting for. All the moral issues? Check. Highest taxation in the developed world? Check. Endless government red tape slowing down everything from getting rid of bad teachers to Keystone? Check. Welfare, welfare, welfare? Check. Cradle to grave dependency? Check. What exactly in the progressive agenda has not come to pass in the last 15 to 20 years? They created a constituency of short-sighted, impatient, childish people. Now they’ve checked out.

I think of some lyrics from the “Imagine Dragons” song Demons:

When the days are cold
And the cards all fold
And the saints we see
Are all made of gold

When your dreams all fail
And the ones we hail
Are the worst of all
And the blood’s run stale

I wanna hide the truth
I wanna shelter you
But with the beast inside
There’s nowhere we can hide

No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come

I wrote a satirical story for one of the conspiracy websites about a year ago postulating that Barack Obama was actually a Republican mole whose mission, when activated, would be to destroy the Democratic Party.

I wrote a satirical story for one of the conspiracy websites about a year ago postulating that Barack Obama was actually a Republican mole whose mission, when activated, would be to destroy the Democratic Party.

AtTheRubicon on November 9, 2014 at 6:10 PM

Erm… No.

His Mission was to expose the Democrat party for what it is and has become. See my 6:20 for reference.

His mission is accomplished and the beauty of it all? He destroyed himself, too. Sweetness!

I ‘m really disquieted by this kind of focus on the good news about Republican wins. It just makes the Conservatives among Republicans overconfident, arrogant, and too careless about making an effort to gain people’s receptive attention, trust and respect.

I ‘m really disquieted by this kind of focus on the good news about Republican wins. It just makes the Conservatives among Republicans overconfident, arrogant, and too careless about making an effort to gain people’s receptive attention, trust and respect.

ansonia on November 9, 2014 at 7:02 PM

I’m sure the leadership is well aware of how quickly things can turn. The pain of losing for Obola twice will be too fresh in their minds.

The work doesn’t stop. Don’t get cocky. Too many people will still vote for Demorats in 2 years just because of the letter after their names. On a national level, enough to send Hillary to the White House and for the Demorats to take back some seats in the Senate.

I am in WA, the GOP did well here this time but it still is a blue state. The quality of the GOP candidates is up. At the 12 caucuses I met a bunch of the Party people, was not impressed there.

I want to have my representatives to be competent managers that work hard for the best decisions for all. Well I see Scott Walker as a perfect example of this, but John Kasich fits that as well as Paul Ryan.

What would happen if the GOP did pass comprehensive immigration reform but made it effective only when black unemployment rate is equal to the general rate and both are under 5%. I would dare 0Bama to veto that.

meci on November 9, 2014 at 4:24 PM

One minor change… tie it to the participation rate, not the unemployment rate. Far too many have given up looking for jobs, which enhances the unemployment rate, making it an unreliable statistic for job measurement.

The GOP now controls 69 of the nation’s 99 legislative chambers, a dramatic reversal, according to Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso, from 2008 when Barack Obama’s party controlled 62 legislative chambers. The GOP now has the total command of state government – both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansions – in 23 states, while Democrats command the levers of government in just seven states. In addition to the Republican Party’s 31 governorships, the GOP enjoys the allegiance of 32 lieutenant governors offices and 29 crucial secretaries of state.

I haven’t seen anyone write about this yet so… vitally important with these numbers is the opportunity to develop the next generation of GOP candidates for higher/Federal office. Think of this as a “developmental league” so to speak, where solid candidates of the future are being groomed. More statewide offices held now will equate to better quality candidates down the road. This will decimate the Democrats “bench” for quite some time.

Apparently every generation has to learn that Marxism doesn’t work. In its more benign form millions of jobs are lost, wages stagnate, and the middle classes are destroyed. In its more malignant form untold millions are murdered.

Kasich’s results looked very good. He also appears pragmatic. Given that CAGW is not true and that the data against it get stronger every year, he may change his position by 2016.

talkingpoints on November 9, 2014 at 6:00 PM

~

Right, many Republicans chose the path of least resistance on climate: not contesting the assumption of warming, but fighting the proposed cures of carbon taxes and drastic coal regs.

No one stays on the good side of the Purity Police forever, anyway. They can always find something to disqualify any candidate who might have a remote chance of actually winning an election in favor of losers who can’t compete but sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre of Perfect Principles.

“When Barack Obama took office, he was hailed as a liberal savior. His presidency, it was believed, would usher in a new era of progressive dominance not seen since Roosevelt. Instead, Republicans have been restored to a position of power across the country they had not known since Al Smith lost 40 states to Herbert Hoover.”

Yeah, but re: Ohio, you don’t know how BAD a candidate the Dem Fitzgerald was. And Kasich isn’t exactly well loved because he’s pivoted so many times to appease Leftists, presumably laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

As arrogant and contemptuous as Barack Obama is, he is not the sole reason for the challenges the Democrat Party.

Among the other reasons…

…the progressive-fascist agenda…
…the purging from the Democrat Party of all those who aren’t fully and loyally vested in that agenda…
…and the non-stop dependence on vile identity politics.

Their entire message has been based on driving and stoking false perceptions around ‘social justice’, ‘fairness’, and ‘equality’.
That message crashed head-on with reality.

Athos on November 9, 2014 at 3:45 PM

Spot on, and add to that that the Democratic party has done absolutely nothing for the middle class. As nominal leader of that party, Obama opined that the Warren courts didn’t go far enough and that we should “spread the wealth around.” His wife said we’d all have to work hard and make sacrifices.

What did we get after six years of social justice? Higher insurance premiums, shrinking provider networks, then gridlock and another 7 trillion added to the national debt. The economy is not measured by GDP, but by the DJIA. All economic growth has gone exclusively to the 1%.

Not to mention, Obama has been a terrible leader. There is a great deal of “blame” to place on him, but only in pointing out that he failed in his job as party leader and president. It pains me not at all to say that, since anyone thinking dispassionately in 2008 knew he was not cut out for the job.

Kasich isn’t exactly well loved because he’s pivoted so many times to appease Leftists, presumably laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

wildwood on November 10, 2014 at 7:45 AM

Unpopular with conservatives, but Kasich obeyed the political will of his constituents, who voted for Barack Obama twice. Then you have Republicans like Rob Portman there. That tells you everything you need to know about how red Ohio is.

Kasich will probably run in 2016, and that’s not a bad thing. Republicans need some Rust Belt governors who can speak to the middle class and tell voters how they plan on creating jobs and growth. If Kasich, Snyder, Walker and/or Christie run, I probably wouldn’t support any of them, but it’s a good bench for the GOP with Perry, Martinez, Bush and Rubio and Paul from the senate.

The wild card here is still the ability of the Democrats — with massive help from their friends in the big media — to create a ‘superstar’ candidate out of whole cloth, in the same way they hyped Barack Obama up to demigod status in the 2004-09 period.

I think they were planning on Julian Castro, but so much for Texas going blue. I don’t think the country will gamble again on a charismatic neophyte, and I think Benghazi killed Hillary’s chances.

This is what happens when the kids elect a narcissist as president. The big Zero might have seemed cool, but he only cares about himself. And there is no reason to think that as an official lame duck he will change his ways and do what’s right for the country and the party.

We live in “Interesting Times”. The democrats are now a coastal rump party in all but name, but they command outsized influence because of sheer population density.

If they cannot appeal to anyone outside of a dense urban cluster of hopelessly clueless people who don’t even know where the meat in the supermarket comes from, what do they have?

Mord on November 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM

I was in DC over the weekend visiting some friends. They said it is almost palpable there, the sense of shock at these election results. The entire DC area is so insulated now due to a lapdog media and the gigantic taxpayer-fueled economic boom there, they had no clue what was about to happen. They still think the Democrats and Republicans are on equal footing. One friend of mine who works for a liberal nonprofit said, well, we’ve seen the Senate change hands quite a few times over the last 20 years, and everyone thinks the Democrats will win it right back in 2016, so we have no reason to try to work with the Republicans.

They are still not listening, nor are they doing the math or looking at the map.

I think it is important to realize after 2008 everyone was writing about the demise of the GOP – so I take all of this with a grain of salt.

The issue will continue to be how much of modern liberalism/progressivism policy continues to destroy people’s lives to the point they recognize it. This was an anti-Obama vote. Not a pro-GOP one. The young, the lower class working poor and middle classes and the upper middle/lower upper classes have been really harmed by this administration. Enough of them realized that to decide to pull a different lever. But they still identify as democrats. Colorado couldn’t shake a governor who deserved to lose. It continues to trend left. California and NY and their huge number of votes show no signs of looking seriously at the GOP.

The media is against us, so we must pray that the financial bleeding being done by the likes of the NYT continues where eventually the press realizes they are turning off potential customers. The media still believes diversity is the greatest – but only in sex/race/gender – even though they are lily white; that everything gay is wonderful; and that every abortion should be encouraged and celebrated. None of this is going to change.

We need to force to the states all the discussions of culture – abortion, sex, gay marriage, etc – and get it out of DC. Because as we see at the local level the dems are getting destroyed. The Congress for two years has to work to de-federalize as much as they can. For while we can ridicule the coverage maps of each party, those blue spots are in some pretty densely populated places with enough people to turn an entire state – Check out the Illinois governor race county chart. Only dem win was in Cook County. Rauer only won like 51-46.